https://Voice.club - The morning called to Charlotte, enticing her to escape the smell of sweat and Bob’s rumbling snores. The sky glimmered pale blue and peach in the early morning chill. Birds twittered. The scent of lavender and thyme enticed her. Sleep clouded her mind, but the day stirred her senses. In the distance, she saw a door overhung by ivy in the high wall around the garden. It had a heavy metal handle, dark against flaking, green paint. She heard bells in the distance, slightly discordant. Was it one or two? Maybe more? They seemed to compete, jangling in confusion.
Charlotte tiptoed across the grass, still wet with dew. She touched the chipped surface of the door, enjoying its coarse reality beneath her fingers. Her heart stuttered with joy at the freedom it represented. She lifted the handle, feeling its weight in her palm. If she opened the door, she’d be released from captivity. Her mind groped in uncertainty, quailing at the loss of familiarity but eager for freedom.
She pushed the door. It resisted. Yanking at clusters of creepers growing over its rusty hinges, she pulled away chunks of it eager to get out before dawn burgeoned into daylight. Again, she pushed the door, leaning her weight against it. With deep satisfaction, she heard it groan as it yielded to reveal a deserted village street. A cluster of cows with bells around their necks grazed in the grass across the road.
Charlotte cautiously stepped out of the garden, then skipped lightly along the dusty road. Laughter caught in her throat, mingled with tears. Where to now? What might the future hold? What did it matter? She was free. Free from his constant clamour to do his bidding. Free from his overbearing presence. Free to explore and become and find.
Then the voice came, loud and cantankerous: “Charlotte, what are you doing out there in your night clothes? Come back immediately.”
She hesitated, then decisively ignoring the voice, she ran swiftly across the lush green grass breasting the hill behind the cattle. At last, she’d broken free!